Jakarta Vice Governor Ahmad Riza Patris revealed that the Jakarta administration hoped that the 2020 Jakarta Theater Congress could accommodate the creativity and critical thinking of every theater actor and thinker in Indonesia, especially in Jakarta.

InsyaAllah, we'll help as much as possible

The statement was conveyed when he symbolically closed the theater congress at the Joang 45 Building, Central Jakarta.

It was also attended by Central Jakarta Mayor Dhany Sukma and Jakarta Culture Agency Head Iwan Henry Wardhana.

At that time, the Vice Governor was inviting the young generation to rekindle a sense of love for the nation's extraordinary arts and culture, especially theater arts, according to the congress theme "Prosperous Culture".

"Theatrical art exists as a place to reflect, express, interact, reflect and inspect; especially national leaders and officials must always reflect. All of you in the theater always show extraordinary performances, inspire, and inspire us all about the importance of national culture," he expressed, as quoted by Jakarta PPID's press release.

Therefore, the administration opened up opportunities for cultural arts activists to collaborate, including theater arts activists.

"InsyaAllah, we'll help as much as possible. Thus, your presence in the theater can inspire us all to work together to advance Jakarta," he explained.

He also hoped that the results of the recommendations/Work Program of the Theater Congress could become materials for theater laboratories that are very rich for comparative studies, theatrical experimentation, as well as thematic performance projects, and how discourse.

"With the experimentation of the theater, it will form what the real face of Indonesian theater is. Restoring the glory of theatrical arts as a medium to educate the audience and as a community needs to express their creative minds," he explained.

Even, he appreciated the 2022 Jakarta Theater Congress which was being held for the first time.

"Happy to attend this theater at the Joang 45 Building with outstanding national and cultural arts fighters, artists, and observers. "On behalf of the Jakarta administration, we appreciate and are grateful to participate in a series of activities and close the Jakarta Theater Congress," he said.

"I'm very happy to be in the midst of the world of artists, a kind of calming phase, to be able to talk and discuss about the world of theater amid the dense bureaucratic and technocratic activities that I face every day," he added.

As said by a theater figure and film director from England Peter Brook, he continued, 'Theatre makes the invisible visible'.

"As we know, the early decades of the 1970s were the heyday of the Jakarta Theater Festival which was formerly known as the Jakarta Youth Theater Festival. In the 1970s, the festival was attended by more than 300 theater groups from various regions in Jakarta," he closed.